True Detective: Night Country – Season 4 Episode 3 Recap & Review

Part 3

True Detective Season 4 Episode 3 begins 7 years earlier: Navarro arrives to arrest Annie Kowtok for “trespassing” on Silversky Mining property. But when she realises she is in the process of delivering a baby, she waits for the baby to be born. Annie then offers herself up for arrest, and it is heavily implied that Navarro let her off. 

Present day: Navarro is annoyed to see Hank leading a group of hillbillies and members of the Alaska police into the snowy desert to search for Raymond Clark. Danvers is concerned Hank is hiring civilians to help in the search for Clark. Pete informs her the forensic technician who has been hired to look into the case is on his way. He also reveals that Anders Lund is conscious but in a very bad way and having his limbs amputated. 

Danvers and Pete head to the evidence room, where Raymond’s stuff is being kept. They shift all that material to the armoury for inspection. Danvers orders Pete to call Navarro and get her transferred back onto the team and asks him to hack Annie’s phone. Pete wants to know what happened between Danvers and Navarro to break up their partnership. Danvers tells him it was all to do with a murder-suicide of a man called William Wheeler. He was released from prison, assaulted a 19-year-old girl, and ended up killing her. 

A flashback shows Danvers and Navarro arriving at the crime scene, with the girl dead and Wheeler sitting on a chair. Danvers says Wheeler then shot himself in front of them. Navarro arrives at the police station to look through Raymond’s stuff with Danvers. They discuss the secret trailer and how it points to Raymond and Annie having a secret affair, and how someone knew about it.

They spot a few pictures of the couple taken by someone else, and the dye in Annie’s hair takes them to a woman called Suzanne, who colours people’s hair in Ennis. Basically, there is an equipment engineer who used to work at Tsalal called Oliver Tagaq, and Suzanne called the police after learning about Annie. Hank was the responding officer and failed to log these key details. 

Navarro is furious and suggests Hank is protecting the miners because they are white and friends of his, and suggests they were behind Annie’s murder because she protested against the mining. Navarro and Danvers enter the ice skating rink and accuse Hank of withholding information. Hank gets coffee thrown in his face after accusing Danvers of seducing Pete.

Pete informs Danvers that the forensic expert won’t make it in time. Pete suggests he can bring in his cousin, who is a vet to get his expert opinion on the case to avoid Anchorage getting the case. Navarro goes to see a man called Qavvik to ask about Oliver, and he points her in the direction of Oliver.

Leah Danvers attends an anti-mining rally, where they demand justice for Annie’s death. They observe a minute silence for the death of a baby, allegedly due to the poisoning of the water caused by the mining. Leah returns home and argues with Danvers and claims she doesn’t care about the deaths of the indigenous people in Alaska. Danvers then goes to the house of the woman who has suffered the miscarriage to pay her respects and see the effects of everything.

Pete’s cousin Vince suggests the Tsalal scientists died before freezing from possible cardiac arrest. Navarro arrives to tell Danvers and Pete she has found Oliver’s address, so Danvers and Navarro head over there to talk to him. He threatens to shoot them when they enter his hut, but when they mention the death of the men, it’s clear Oliver didn’t know, and he flies into a rage. 

The episode ends as Danvers and Navarro get a call from the Ennis hospital that Anders Lund has woken up. He is screaming his lungs out because of the pain, but Anders is able to tell Danvers that “someone” is out there in the ice, and he points out that this “someone” is a woman.

This conversation is interrupted by a brawl in the lobby of the hospital due to a clash between the hillbillies and the hospital staff. This leaves Navarro alone with Anders for a moment as Danvers intervenes with the hillbillies and hospital staff. Anders rises from his bed and tells Navarro that her mother is waiting for her. He dies shortly afterward.

Pete then shows up with Annie’s phone and shows them a video of Annie in a cave, and it’s horrifying as she’s being chased and is screaming.


The Episode Review

Episode 3 is the best one yet, as the plot thickens with more revealed about the mysterious deaths of the men and their links to Annie’s death.

Jodie Foster is absolutely brilliant as Liz Danvers, and she has some very dark comedic moments in this episode that reveal an extra layer to her character. Navarro is like a bull in a china shop with her aggressive nature, but this works in the story. Pete is the most likeable character in this show and we get to learn more about him, which is a high point of the episode.

Things are getting very creepy and possibly supernatural as we reach the halfway point in the season. 

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You can look forward to a full season review when this show ends!

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